A new feature in Google Slides: Slides Q&A. This update—rolling out globally today—helps speakers connect with their audience and collect real-time feedback. With a simple link displayed on a Slides presentation, audience members can submit questions from their phones, laptops, and tablets—and vote on those they want answered the most.

If you’re using Google Slides and want to hold a Q&A, you can display a short URL on your presentation that attendees can go to and submit a question without interrupting the proceedings. At that same URL, anyone in the audience can see all the questions that have been submitted thus far and give them a “thumbs up” to indicate interest in hearing an answer.

AirForShareprovides a free and easy solution for file sharing among iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Windows, WP7 and Android, as long as the devices are on the same network. The service even has a dedicated app for iOS. One of the best things about the app is that you it does not confine you to just a few file formats. You can share photos, audio clips, music and just about any file that is present on your iPhone.

Raising a kid in the age of the Internet can sometimes be a scary thing for parents – they never know what risqué photos might pop up in the results of a simple online search during homework time.

KIDDLE – The new engine is designed to bring kids search results that “satisfy family-friendly requirements” as it filters sites with explicit content, according to the site’s “About Us” page.

In addition to bringing safe content handpicked by Kiddle editors, the search engine also boasts big thumbnails with search results (for those kids who are just starting out with reading) and larger font for readability. But perhaps most importantly, Kiddle also states that the engine does not collect any personal information and logs are deleted every 24 hours.

One thing you should know is that Kiddle is not owned by Google and is not officially affiliated with them in anyway. According to Whois.net, you’ll see that Kiddle is registered at GoDaddy.com, and the domain is set to expire on October 31st of 2016. Does this mean Kiddle will expire? Not necessarily, but website owners that are highly invested in a site and have intentions of keeping it online will usually buy the domain for at least five years. Kiddle may be waiting to see if the site will garner enough traffic to warrant renewing the domain.

The confusion about the site being owned by Google comes about because the Kiddle main site does look a lot like the Google setup, but with more child friendly colors and a fun robot. Many sites have said that Kiddle is a Google product, but the fact is that it is not associated with Google in anyway. Nowhere on Kiddle does it claim to be a Google site.

Kiddle is a search engine that gets its results from Google safe search. So yes, it should be safer. The top 1-7 results are chosen by editors, who block out sites that may be unsafe for children to view. The results for 8 and on are not edited, so parents should understand that although it might be safer it is not perfect.

Some Twitter users have done a little research to find out just what kind of results can be found. They discovered that there are still questionable results on Kiddle that should make parents pay attention.

There are some benefits to Kiddle that you may like. One of the benefits is the previously mentioned edited results. According to the Kiddle About page,

Also, according to the Kiddle privacy policy, Kiddle does not store any “personally identifiable information.” The part that most people won’t understand is what follows.

This means that although Kiddle is not storing your information, Google still might be. Kiddle uses an embedded Google search bar on the front page of the Kiddle site. It is a Google tool that follows Google’s policies for privacy. You can read more about Google Privacy to understand it better.

Another nice feature of Kiddle is that certain words are blocked. So, if your child types in things like “butts” or “penis” or “Pamela Anderson” on Kiddle, they will get the fun robot visual and the message, “Oops, looks like your query contained some bad words. Please try again!” You can add words to the Kiddle keyword block form or even add sites to the site blocking form. This does make Kiddle more child friendly.

Dotstorming is a free real-time, group-sharing, brainstorming and decision-making web tool that can easily be used in every classroom.

Dotstorming is similar to Padlet and Realtime Board in that the teacher creates a board/wall that produces a web address for students to click on or type in for easy access. Users can add “post its” with their thoughts or ideas as well as upload images. I love to use virtual collaboration boards like Dotstorming for students to share their work with one another.

Dotstorming allows users to view and comment on each other’s posts. Students LOVE to read the feedback from their peers.

Users can also place votes on their favorite idea or image by clicking the “dot” under the post. The post that has the most dots is the most popular. As the creator of a Dotstorming space you can restrict the number of votes that each person can cast.

Another great feature of Dotstorming is the chat room. This is helpful for students working together, as they add ideas and upload images to a shared board. They can communicate with each other without leaving comments on the individual posts.

Extensions are installed in the browser and give you added features and abilities to customize your browser.

Warning! Running too many extensions at once can slow your computer down. This list is a great place to start, but pick and choose what ones you need or want to try. Be sure to grab the Extensity extension so you can turn extensions off when you do not need them.

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About this blog

I believe that technology reaches students in a way that few other mediums can. It gives them the ability to express themselves in meaningful ways. The purpose of this site is to share information about resources that teachers can use in their classrooms. True integration takes place seamlessly.

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